2.5" ball shell burst

[clarkie752]

I have made 10 2.5" ball shells so far in this new hobby of mine. My question is why are my breaks not that good? I have been useing 4fa size homemade blackpowder for my burst charge. they break ok but if i went to phantom fireworks and bought a pack of excals they break bigger than my homemade 2.5" shells. im just looking for suggestions to make my shells break like a 2.5" shell should. I have made my shells with the cardboard hemies u buy at pyrodirect and applied 7 layers of gum tape. I wanted to put more wraps of tape on but if i do it wont fit down my tubes. Any suggestions would be much appriciated. my bp will lift my dummy shell to about 300 feet with 7 grams of 2fa size lift so i think my bp is of decent quality.

[Arthur]

IMO small shells may well need a booster in the break charge, some people use flash or whistle or simply add a little dark al to the BP in the burst charge.

 

However, remember that break size is not all! too big and they look sparse and the stars get back to ground level, too small and they look lost in the sky. It's your design and everything interacts to give you most of what you want.

[clarkie752]

When adding dark al to the bp burst charge do you add this before or after you granulate? Also how much dark al should i add?

[Zumber]

When adding dark al to the bp burst charge do you add this before or after you granulate? Also how much dark al should i add?

Before granulating, he must be adding few percent dark aluminum to his black powder & after mixing well he must be granulating.

small shells always needs energetic burst like KP burst charge or H3 burst charge (not for beginners?).

I need you to add 3 grams of slow nitrate based flash powder as a booster and try your shell if not satisfied then increase booster upto 5 gram.

[pyrokid]

If you cut open a premium canister, you will see that they don't use a BP break charge. It is something more energetic.

[schroedinger]

Do you use a layer of tissue paper between your burst and and stars? This paper is neccesarry for round breaks.

Which geometry are your stars? Best use rolled stars.

Did you try to paste your shells with normal kraft and and a glue or just with gummed tape? On small shells this can make a big difference, specially when hand pasting.

If you are sure it is only your break charge whixh is to weak, you should stay with bp and first try to increase the strenght by using a finer granulation then 2 FA, more something maybe ffg. If that doesn't help, Take your 2 FA and add a little booster to your shells. You can either use Whistle or Flash based booster. Which whistle having the advantage that it doesn't give a white flash on the break, which really can ruin the effect of such small shells (in my eye). Start by adding .5g of booster to your shells and add increase this ratio in 0.5g steps until you get your desired effect. Also test if it is better for you to contain the flash in a little piece of tissue in the middle of the shell or just drop it in.

 

The size of your break depends on a couple things not just the break charge. Do you get round breaks from your shells or horsetails, a real round break is much more disirable than just break size ? Maybe you could post a movie of your shells, making and firing, thats an easy way to let people see where you can improve your building.

[Jakenbake]

Tissue paper between stars and the burst is not necessary for round bursts. I believe there are a few on here that agree with me too. All the OP needs to do is add a booster to his break. Start small and go from there.

[LambentPyro]

I've heard the tissue paper is there to prevent the burst from compressing too much and getting into the crevices between the stars and allowing things to move around a bit easier than a shell with the tissue paper. As I believe that a round shell should have nothing shaking around inside making any noise. When I apply that principle, my breaks come out exactly as I desire them. Edited June 23, 2014 by LambentPyro

[clarkie752]

schroedinger. I use round stars with my break charge in the middle wrapped in tissue paper. the break charge i have been useing is 4 fg size willow bp. I have only used gummed tape so far. My breaks are nice and round but they seem small with not alot of pop to them. I have tried adding flash but never measured how much. I would put my bp in the middle then sprinkle the flash on top of the bp in both hemis. adding flash did make them a little better but as mentioned by some people the bright flash takes away from the color of the stars. I was just wondering if i should be using perchlorate bp instead of regular bp in these smaller size shells.

[MrB]

While i agree, tissue paper isn't necessary for good, round breaks, it does help in making it easier to handle in the making. Also, it saves about 10-15gr of bp (estimate) for a 2.5" shell.

It's just good practice. Sucks that i have to resort to scavenging paper, not having found a good source.

Anyway, i to suggest boosting the break with a touch of flash. If your getting a bright flash, it would seam your flash hasn't burned of when the shell breaks, or your having to use loads of flash to get the expected results. I'm thinking you might need a stronger shell? Stronger pasting, or more of it, that is.

B!

[schroedinger]

From what you write i would recommend to stay with just bp and don't go for any flash.

 

Chinese often use huge ammounts of flash, in their shells to get the stars traveling very far.

 

You can of course try to use kp and see if it makes a huge difference, but first i would try to reinforce your pasting.

 

From what you wrote it seems like your shells are dialed in pretty god. So take those as your base and change just one thing at a time and see how it influences your shell behavior.

 

Do you have mg powder? If yes i can give you an alternative burst powder/booster formula which works really god and got less issues with the white spot

Edited June 23, 2014 by schroedinger

[Shizznt]

If the flash is messing up your shells, clarkie, then try whistle mix. When the shell breaks, it doesn't have a bright flash

When I made 2.5" shells, i used about 2g of whistle.

70% Potassium perchlorate

30% Potassium benzoate

 

-Ryan

[clarkie752]

I will have to look into how to make whistle mix and try that. I will try to post a video soon and see what everyone thinks.

[schroedinger]

http://www.skylighter.com/fireworks/How-to-make-sky-rockets/whistle-rocket.asp

 

Here is the skylighter tutorial.

 

If you don't want to use the boiling step, you can use aceton instead of of naphta, whixh evaporatex on his own.

[Shadowcat1969]

While i agree, tissue paper isn't necessary for good, round breaks, it does help in making it easier to handle in the making. Also, it saves about 10-15gr of bp (estimate) for a 2.5" shell.

It's just good practice. Sucks that i have to resort to scavenging paper, not having found a good source.

Anyway, i to suggest boosting the break with a touch of flash. If your getting a bright flash, it would seam your flash hasn't burned of when the shell breaks, or your having to use loads of flash to get the expected results. I'm thinking you might need a stronger shell? Stronger pasting, or more of it, that is.

B!

MrB,

I know you're not in the US, but I would imagine you have stationery stores and/or crafting suppliers around somewhere. Either of those should have packages of tissue paper relatively cheap.

[MrB]

I know you're not in the US, but I would imagine you have stationery stores and/or crafting suppliers around somewhere.

Crafting suppliers that deliver to kindergartens, and schools would be able to help me, and in a variety of colors. But they want an organization number, and bulk orders. Outside of that, i've had no luck. Crafting supplies aimed at the general public seams to have a very limited selection of stuff, bot when it comes to what they can get for you, but even more so when it comes to what they got in stock... I cant get hold of virgin craft either. Not really an issue, the paper i'm using is "virgin" protective stuff the painters use to cover the floors and so on. Comes on good solid rolls, easy to cut to with with a saw, and while i'm not convinced it's as directional as craft, it's been serving me well.

 

Now, recycling isn't THAT bad, i keep having just enough tissue-paper for my needs.

B!

[Shadowcat1969]

Hmmm, you might see if you can cozy up to a school teacher and try to get them to skim some from the classroom, lol. I have several different colors, and for the inside of a shell it makes no difference, lol. I do use colored tissue to cover gerbs and such on occassion to "pretty them up".

 

A lot of folks over here use tissue, along with a decorated bag to "wrap" gifts. Just put your gift in a "gift bag", stuff colored tissue in the top and Ta-Da!

 

So Tissue availability is pretty common for that kind of thing here. That's why I suggested Stationery supply places (where you'd buy greeting cards or gift wrapping paper). Or party supply. If you have that kind of store around.

[dagabu]

Do you have a shipping company by you? Tissue paper is cheap and plentiful for moving fragile items.

[Shizznt]

I will have to look into how to make whistle mix and try that. I will try to post a video soon and see what everyone thinks.

For the formula I posted, just make sure both comps are very fine. Then, mix them carefully using a method like the diaper method.

I never tried mixing it like I would when making bp, cause I think its very sensitive but not as sensitive as flash. So, just be careful when mixing and handling it.

[MrB]

Do you have a shipping company by you? Tissue paper is cheap and plentiful for moving fragile items.

Were getting off-topic. But. Shipping companies around here use bubble wrap, recycled cardboard boxes, foam peanuts, and plastic wrap.

 

For the formula I posted, just make sure both comps are very fine. Then, mix them carefully using a method like the diaper method.

I never tried mixing it like I would when making bp, cause I think its very sensitive but not as sensitive as flash. So, just be careful when mixing and handling it.

I'm going to recommend him something slightly different. Make benzolift, and use it as booster. It's less sensitive then straight up whistle, but also less powerful, so more should be used to boost.

It's 70/30 whistle/BP, which should make it 35, 15, 37,5, 7,5, 5. Potassium Perclorate, Sodium benzoate, Potasium nitrate, Charcoal, Sulfur.

 

Screen together the charcoal, sulfur and sodium benzoate in one step, and then screen together the KNO3 and potassium perchlorate, as one step. Lastly screen the two together, and use the result as booster for the current breaks. The first two steps doesn't really require much care, since it's pretty none reactive, but the third step is where it becomes a explosive.

 

Good luck, stay safe.

B!

[Niladmirari]

Hi friends. What booster (flash) is needed to 6 inches shells? And what weight booster (flash)? I use bursting charge BP 10 ounces.

 

Thanks for the answer!

[schroedinger]

On a 6" normaly you shouldn't need any booster.

But some people report that they get god results by using 1-2g, but here it is the same you've to test what works best for you. Maybe start with 1g and gofrom here.

 

Again i would recommend whistle or benzo over flash.

 

You also could think about using KP burst charge on that size shell

[Merlin]

I have made benzolift using Perc, silicate,potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur. Basically BP meal with correct amounts or silicate and perc. Also adding a bit of iron oxide and dampening the comp with acetone and granulating. Goes bang pretty well and is hotter than BP alone but I have not used it for break as I am only testing dummy shells at this point.

 

Use meal-D or ball milled BP powder instead of KNO3, charcoal and sulfur. The meal-D will makeup 30% of the mixture. For the other 70%, use whistle mix with 1% iron oxide as a catalyst. Use lacquer thinner or acetone as the wetting agent. This will make the most powerful version of benzolift - the stuff actually whistles so you know it is honking. I use this mix as an augmentation increment for red magnalium rocket motors. It gets them ignited and off the pad in the blink of an eye. Here are the ingredients:

 

meal-D or ball milled BP (as hot as you can make it) 100 grams

Sodium Salicylate – 70 grams ( you might try substituting potassium or sodium benzoate - but best results are with salicylate)

Potassium Perchlorate – 160 grams

Iron oxide - 2.3 grams

Edited June 29, 2014 by Merlin

[nater]

http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/benzolift.html

 

By the way, the above post was copied and pasted from another well known pyro's site. Some helpful information was left out. Just giving credit where it is due.

[schroedinger]

You also can use benzo or pottasium sorbat in the same ratio.